Earning Money Now As Easy As Taking A Selfie

MIAMI (CBSMiami) — A lot of people take selfies for fun, but now some smartphone owners are using selfies to earn money.

“I uploaded a few of the sunglasses selfies and they bought two of them,” Cynthia Houser said.

Houser sold her selfie through a new app called Scoopshot, it’s one of several sites where brands like soft drink companies or airlines can go to ask consumers to take selfies with their product. If the company likes what they see, they can offer to buy them.

“We do all the clearing, so the photographer gets his or her money and the media gets the right to use the photo,” Scoopshot founder, Petri Rahja, explained.

Finnair asked Scoopshot users to send in travel selfies and wound up purchasing about 50 of the 800 selfies that were submitted for about $15 each.

A cosmetic company gave $1000 to a selfie contest winner, McDonald’s paid just over $20 for food focused selfies, and a hotel in Puerto Rico held a selfie sweepstakes and gave the winner a free weekend stay.

“There’s a whole lot of money to be made in our own images,” selfie taker, Craig Hacker, said.

Hacker recently took a selfie at a furniture trade show at the Javits Center, where a hearth fireplace company was offering a free dinner at a New York City restaurant as a prize.

“I wanted to do something fun for people who are at the show to bring some attention to our product, but to also engage somebody on a one on one basis,” Arthur Lasky, president of Hearth Cabinets said.

Lasky said that it was an easy, fun thing for people to do, and a good way to get attention from potential new customers.

Once you sell your selfie for use as a stock photograph it can be used to advertise anything, whether you like it or not.